Briansy

Hi all,

I'm having a pretty crappy morning it must be said. Am suffering the after effects of a day of pretty joyless drinking - this has been after 2 weeks of sobriety and an average of more than one AA meeting per day as well as following suggestions of my sponsor. I actually even went to a meeting yesterday morning and had a big book reading session with my sponsor arranged but he cancelled for the second week in a row due to illness. I guess I could resentful at that and thought "eff it".

I really feel I am doing everything in my power to stop drinking but must be honest in that I have also been struggling with gambling. And I can't really count two weeks of sobriety from alcohol as real sobriety given I have been gambling. I was sure I had gotten step one down but clearly not as I keep relapsing. Clearly, I haven't been thinking: under no circumstances can I never drink again, ever. The consequences come every time and the high has all but gone. So why do I keep doing it? Perhaps it's the gambling and resolving to cut that out entirely also will change things. Perhaps these relapses are just part of the natural cycle and most people go through it? But it's very frustrating.

I am having doubts about my sponsor. He can be tough to get hold of and I am quite discouraged that he cancelled right at the last minute two weeks in a row. Perhaps I need a change? I've only been with him a month, though.

Anyway, would welcome people's thoughts - hardly a new phenomenon in these parts I know!

Cheers,
Brian.

RecklessEric

Sorry you're struggling Brian.

There are countless methods for helping you stop, so I'd advise you to look around and find one that really works for you.
What you're doing at the moment clearly isn't working.

wildflower70

Hi Briansy,

I have struggled for 5 years with relapsing. even after several months of sobriety (4 months, 6 months, 8 months). I never went to AA, with the exception of one time many moons ago.....But it took a lot of will power to say NO that first month of abstinence. I basically only went to places that didn't serve booze, which is hard these days, as the closest movie theater now has a fully stocked bar. So, I stayed home...a lot.

I have found that after 30 days, the temptations really subside. I no longer think of drinking on a daily basis, and I'm not tempted when I see it in the store ect....I didn't enjoy drinking over these past 5 years, it was merely a bad habit that needed to be broken. I'm back at 35 days sober and doing well, one day at a time.

Keep trying, even if you fail. Try to stop saying "eff it"...that is what got be back on the booze every time. And I always regretted it! The pain I suffered after drinking was far worse than I wanted to endure after a night of boring, depressing, drinking....alone. You can do this, dust off and try again. Find other support systems. Blessings...WF

biminiblue

We know the struggle.

Briansy, I remember your very first thread here. I've read through it a few times since you posted it, because you came here with a Grand Plan of Sometimes Drinking Because I Can. It is the great illusion we all had at one point. I think you would benefit greatly from re-reading that thread, I think it is a great thread.

There is something about us.

It's biology, it's personality, it's my past, it's how I dealt with emotions. It's how I dealt with people, it's the best and the worst thing - this obsession. Looking at it from the benefit of four and a half years since my last drink I can tell you that my brain was jacked. I was messed. UP. It took a long time to get well, but the one thing that let me get well was complete continuous abstinence. There's simply no other way, and there is no piece of wisdom other than that one.

As far as the sponsor? Well, I got sober and stayed that way without a sponsor. I did go to meetings every day for the first four months. The Big Book is free, and the program is simple. I work parts of it every day and I'm not even an AAer.

Find a way to detach from the personalities in AA. Some are good to listen to and some not. Choose carefully, but it's pretty common for people to jump around with different sponsors I think. Back to Step One. It's like Chutes and Ladders or a video game, you can't understand/Level Up to Step Two if you haven't made it past Step One.

I worked in a casino for a lot of years. I was a heavy drinker back then and it was a 24/7 town. The casino was great for me. I loved the fast pace, the seedy underbelly and the acceptance of bad behavior. I get it with the draw to the dark side, but I saw a lot of people who were just as compulsive about gambling as they were about drink and drugs. I agree with you that the gambling is part of the obsessive mind. Can't heal until it's all in the past.

There's something about us.

Only way out is to put it down. All of it.

Briansy

Just had a long chat with my sponsor and that has helped massively. What I should have done is called him yesterday. I just have to pick myself up and keep following the programme - and follow it better. I guess these are all teachable scenarios but this is a reminder that I need to be way more vigilant than I have been, plain and simple. And also - militantly avoiding situations where I am alone at home for long periods and other clear triggers such as gambling and unresolved resentments.

biminiblue

Being alone at home is my default state. It's where I drank and also where I found recovery.

As long as I'm doing something productive or at least not harmful to me then I'm fine with long periods of alone.

There's always people available. Grocery stores, the beach, the gym, meetings, here. People aren't the solution. I still have to manage that eight inches between my own ears regardless of where I am or who is around.

biminiblue

Oh...this is the thread I was referring to earlier - I guess it wasn't your first thread!

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ent-state.html (Crossing the line from hangovers to withdrawals - a permanent state?)

Briansy

Haha, yup, I abandoned that strategy fairly quickly!

biminiblue

But did you abandon it, or move the goalposts again?

Are you still using benzos after your drinking?

Because you're still drinking. Maybe not with the same plan, but you plan to drink and you do.

Briansy

No more benzos. Not since late July. Benzos were really a means of facilitating more drinking by easing WDs. Plus, benzos open the door for multi-day drinking as the aftermath would be more palatable. And they prolong the detox as same brain receptors are getting hit up. Evil things really.

I don't think I moved the goal posts as my objective is 100% abstinence from alcohol. I am trying to close the door on any thought about drinking in any capacity in the near or distant future. To date I have not been able to achieve that but I am hopeful that staying committed to the cause will reap long term rewards.

biminiblue

I had to eliminate the false notion that "triggers" exist.

Seems to be a concept that's prevalent in your posts, and really there is no such thing.

Does my addict/alcoholic brain dredge up any emotion and excuse as a reason to pick up a drink? Absolutely. I still own the power to not act on it.

I drank for everything. Happy, sad, bored, frustrated, elated, celebrating, socializing, getting-through-a-weekend. Raining, sunny, cold, hot. Days that end in "y." I mean that's what I did, it was a habit.

The only way to break a habit is to stop giving the thoughts any power. I do that by talking back to them. "I don't drink and I'll never change my mind," works. So does prayer.

In order to stop I had to not-drink...no matter what. The end.

Have you seen this great thread from the stickies in the Anxiety forum?

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...anagement.html (Emotional Memory Management)

Briansy

Thanks Bimini. I'll use that. I do think there are certain situations, people, places etc that it's best to avoid in the early days, however.

Briansy

I think a huge part of it is the habit aspect, though, you are right. I need to mix things up in my life!

ScottFromWI

I would agree that there is certainly a habit component to it. But I would caution ( from my own personal experience ) from trying to figure out "why". No matter what method or plan you decide to follow, and no matter what happened before you got here, accepting/surrendering/pledging that no amount of alcohol is ever OK is a necessary step IMHO.

How you go about that really is a personal matter too - and you don't even have to call it alcoholism or addiction I don't think if you don't want to. I look at it this way - there is something simply different about me that will not allow me to drink alcohol in a controlled manner. If I drink any amount of alcohol, bad things will happen eventually. And whatever it is that is different about my mind/body that doesn't allow me to drink "normally" can never be changed. But I can make the choice to not drink at all - that is 100% within my control - and yours too.

BullDog777

You said you wanted feedback.....

You can't hardly say that you feel like you're doing everything in your power to stop drinking when your entire sobriety in contingent on your sponsor being timely.

c'mon bro.....

It would be more accurate if you said that you were looking for a reason to relapse because you wanted to get drunk and this was the first thing that pi$$ed you off.

For this to work...there has to be a brutal honesty about yourself.

Telling yourself what is justifiable in your eyes while maintaining that you're doing everything you can- is still killing you.

I don't mean to be harsh. It's quite the opposite actually. I'm trying to show you how cunning this illness is and how you can convince yourself of anything when you're still in active toxic thinking.

you gotta make better choices if you want to survive this.

Briansy

Thanks Bulldog, that's helpful. I've incorporated a "I cannot drink under any circumstances, ever" refrain into my daily routine. Not sure how I got out of that mindset as I most assuredly had it back in August.

SoberCAH

This sounds like a good approach.

When it comes to alcohol, I simply cannot be too careful, irrespective of how long it's been since my last drink.

I would also stay away from the gambling, amigo.

Computer gambling and hitting the machines and gaming tables at the casino aren't part of the 12 steps.

Keep us posted with your efforts.

You deserve to feel better.

Gottalife

I don’t know about you brainsy but I lost the power of choice in drink and I never got it back. Knowing that fact, the first step, did not get me sober. If it would have done that, I wouldn’t have needed to do all the other steps. All step one does is identify the problem, which is very important.

The most insidious part of the problem was the insanity of the first drink. Notice step two raises the possibility that a higher power could restore us to sanity. That kind of says that step one hasn’t done the job doesn’t it? Then we make a decision to get connected the the higher power, then begun to take the action in the later steps, perhaps getting the first inkling that the problem is solved after step five.

We take the steps to recover, not the other way around, though if you are stuck in a cycle and unable to break the phenomenon of craving, a stay in detox would be a good move, followed by rapid action on the steps.

About calling your sponsor, in hindsight it always seems that is what we should have done, just like making a decision to not drink no matter what. I made that decision many times and drank anyway. A feature of the insanity is that it will not occur to me to call anyone when the obsession is back. Without defence against the first drink. Lack of power to do these things was the dilemma, but there is one who has all power, and I found that as the result of the steps.

August252015

Hey Briansy- glad to see you posted again. Sent you a PM.

Since you and I have talked about this a bit, I have to say that it seemed you were working on both some changed, sober-focused thinking and action several weeks ago...then struggling with just what Bimini succinctly asked. I think I might have used the word equivocation in a comment or two we shared on a thread.

The simple question is still what it has always been for you, and for each of us: will you stop drinking permanently? Then, once that is decided, do what is necessary to execute that one aim every day? I found that everything else - handling feels, dealing with frustrations about people/places/practices as I am sure you've heard in AA....it all comes with continuous sober time.

You can definitely take the action needed. I think you know what you need to do and I hope you regroup and decide that, as least says, you want to be sober more than you want to drink.

Stick with us.

Hawkeye13

I agree--it really is about the first and most important decision which is "I am done drinking alcohol".

That's what works for me, and anything else has always led to relapse. The other crap works itself out for the most part.

You can do it--jump in for good